I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself
by Skin Unzipper
Summary: My first attempt at anything. Unoriginally diverts at the sixteenth angel battle. I wrote the first four chapters YEARS ago. This is awful. ShinjiRei.
1. In the Cold, Cold Night Part One

Disclaimer action: the I am in no way involved with any of the respective parties that created the amazing series, Shin Seiki Evangelion.

Furthermore, I own none of the rights to the White Stripes' works. That is copyright third man studios, V2 Records, and whoever else.

Each chapter is recommended to go with a White Stripes song. Go ahead and listen to the title song after each chapter. More importantly, read the lyrics. You'll get it.

This story contains language, violence, angst, and sexual themes, though not necessarily all present in the same chapters. If this is not to you, the reader's tastes, please discontinue reading. As for everyone else, please enjoy, and criticize where necessary. Yes, I do know how Shinji/Rei pairings are inherently messed up, but for the sake of the story, just ignore those implications. 

Thanks,

sven roc petrov I

Background: begins as the sixteenth angel appears.

I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself.

Chapter one: In the Cold, Cold Night, Part One.

{In the NERV command center.}

"Rei, can you hear me?" Katsuragi Misato asked.

"Hai," was the curt response of the pilot of Unit 00. 

"Good, now—"

"No, It's attacking," Rei interrupted. The luminous double helixed ring that was the second to last angel had broken itself to change to an amorphous line, and was dashing at the blue Eva. 

"Angel has made contact with Unit 00!" gasped Maya.

"This could be deadly, Katsuragi." Dr. Akagi looked over Maya's shoulder, and read the status of the Eva, droning, "There is now a 5% fusion rate. The pilot could die." Misato visibly cringed at how lightly Ritsuko was taking the endangerment of Pilot Ayanami. 

Nevertheless, she commanded, "Asuka! Launch and take out the angel that's attacking Rei!"

Asuka didn't dignify the command with a response, and just mumbled to herself about how she couldn't keep herself from piloting, even though she vowed otherwise.

"Launch!" Misato yelled. By the time Eva 02 arrived on the surface, Ayanami had resorted to shooting the amorphous creature with her rifle, to little success. "Asuka, get that angel off of Rei and finish it off!" Asuka's Eva didn't move at all. "Asuka?!"

"It's hopeless, Katsuragi. Sohryu's sync ratio is below ten percent. She will be of no use."

"Grrrrr…" Misato looked on at the events unfolding on the screen. Rei was obviously enduring a lot of pain as she wrestled with the writhing angel. "Lower Unit 02."

"Sortie Unit 01," Gendo Ikari said, no, commanded. He had a power over his subordinates that extended beyond his rank. He had an air to him that just screamed, "Mess with me, and I'll kill you, and then I'll go to work on you."

Even Misato felt this, though she felt he needed to be questioned on this one, "but sir—"

"Sortie it."

"Yokai. Remove the restraints from 01!" Shinji was already in the Eva, and half expecting to have to be used again that day. He never wanted to do it again. He felt that Asuka was addicted to the power it gave her. He suspected Rei didn't like it either, but…

"Launch!"

Shinji felt instantly heavier as he rocketed up to the surface, slightly closer to the ensuing carnage than Asuka had been. "God…" Shinji gasped as Rei's entry plug camera came onscreen. Her entire being was consumed with twitching pain, veins throbbing through her plugsuit, even more grotesque were the ones disfiguring her angelic face.

"Shinji! Look out!" Misato warned Shinji of the closing angel.

Shinji leapt out of the way of the end of the angel, and caught part of it as it shot by him. He held it at a distance to try to keep it from impaling him, but the Eva's arms were to short to account for the angel stretching. It stabbed him in the neck, near his collarbone. "AAAAAAAAAH!!" Shinji hadn't felt this kind of pain since his first battle when his arm was smashed and twisted off…

The pilots were connected by the malicious angel.

"I—Ikari-kun!" Ayanami managed a muffled cry. She fell out of consciousness.

"Aya—na…" His eyes closed, "mi…"

"Am I alone?" Rei found herself standing amongst a pool of LCL. "No, I sense someone else here. Myself in Eva?" She gasped. She didn't know what to think of what she saw.

**

"Hello?" Shinji nervously asked the empty world of LCL he found himself in. "Is there anyone who can hear me?" 'This reeks of blood…oh, why now? I need to help Ayanam—" He looked on in shock.

There was indeed someone else in the LCL world. Two people in fact. Two people who were very close, very close indeed…

**

"Is this _me_?" Rei asked herself. "What am I doing with Ikari? Are we kissing? Yes, that is what it is." She looked on. The sight would have made Asuka go absolutely insane. The representation of Rei was clinging to him, as if afraid that he'd let go, just as the representation of Shinji held onto her to ground him in his existence. 

"Isn't this what you want? A gentle, understanding person to hold you? To, love you?"

"Who said that?" Rei demanded.

"Doesn't it hurt?"

"Pain, no, not pain. Who _are_ you?"

"Loneliness?"

"Yes, this is loneliness." She watched as the couple liquefied and changed form…

**

Shinji looked on. "Is this, no, it can't be reality. Is this some kind of dream?"

"Perhaps it is, Shinji. Freud says that dreams are visions of unrealized desires." The voice was slow and deliberate, monotonous.

"Great. A philosopher." Shinji couldn't pull his gaze from the face of Rei. She seemed to be showing some kind of expression in the arms of what was supposedly him, but he couldn't quite put it together. But it was something, and that was rare, precious, even. As if just in spite of him, his fantasy fell into liquid form and sank into the pool of LCL. "Wait!" Shinji exclaimed, before he realized how pathetic it sounded. With a sigh, he began to lower his head, but a figure was forming and rising from the orange slime. As it developed, he began to see that the figure was distinctly that of Ayanami Rei, whose posture was somehow different than usual, in her plugsuit. She, it, sauntered towards the young man…

**

The form of Ikari Shinji slowly approached her, and put his arms around her. "Ikari," she started, but then she relaxed, and melted under his embrace, and leaned into him as he held her.

SNAP! The two pilots had little transition from such comfort into the excruciating pain of the real world.

"Pilots have regained consciousness!" yelled Dr. Akagi over Lt. Ibuuki's shoulder.

"Shinji! Rei! Are you okay?!" Misato screamed. Shinji and Rei just stared at each other for a moment, until,

"Hai," Shinji struggled. "We are able to continue…" Shinji trailed off. He was still looking at Rei.

'Thank God,' Misato thought, as she clutched her cross necklace.

Rei was still in a mix of shock and confusion, piled on top of the immense pain still coursing through her body. She felt a tiny impact on her lap. "Is this a tear? I'm crying, but I don't know why, or do I? Does my soul want to unite with him? Is that what I felt?" Through this, the angel had overtaken Shinji and thrown him to the ground. "Ika—Shinji!" Her Eva went berserk.

"Sync ratio over 300%!" Maya yelled. 'Please, not like last time, I lost my lunch…'

The blue Eva's jaw bindings burst, and it roared. It ripped the writhing angel out of its stomach with a sickening sloshing sound, and gripped one end of it with its right hand and yanked. The other end of the angel flung out of Unit 01's neck, bringing the collapsed Eva up off the ground with it slightly, before falling back in place with a thud. Eva 00's left hand caught the opposite end of the angel and forced it in it's right hand with the other end, safely keeping the attacking parts away from its body. Grabbing it near the middle with its left hand, it bit straight through the creature. The angel immediately stopped glowing, and instead, began dripping the innards of the beast all over the once blue, now red Eva.

"Shit…" Misato trailed off. She had hoped to never see anything like that ever again, but sure enough, here it was. Another disgusting sight of a beast, 99.89% human, devouring a living nightmare. Though which was really the nightmare now, eh?

"So, Gendo, another god on your hands, hm? How fortunate." Fuyutsuki directed towards Gendo. The commander retained his trademark plotting pose.

'It can be terminated after the final angel is destroyed. It will no longer be necessary. Only Unit 01,' thought the commander. "Fuyutsuki, even as my closest friend, you are my _subordinate_. It is _not_ a problem."

"But surely you realize that SEELE--"

"SEELE is not a concern at this point. They will cause no problems."

The blood splattered Eva collapsed with a splash in the crimson saturated ground.

**

Shinji briefly opened his eyes, to meet the now familiar ceiling. He heard a person breathing, and closed his eyes. His thoughts drifted towards the blue haired pilot before he left all conscious thought behind, and fell into deep, restful sleep. The fighting was almost over.

**

Rei's view initially surprised her. Dr. Akagi stood directly above her, changing her IV. Ritsuko bent over to straighten the line that ran from the bag to Rei, who squirmed out of the way a bit, turning her head to see Shinji. She breathed in sharply.

"Ayanami, is there something wrong?" The girl didn't respond. She seemed lost in thought. "Ayanami?"

Well, I banged that out in an hour or two. What do you think? Please review. More to come. And soon!

You can reach me at seansv@kc.rr.com

Thanks for reviewing in advance.


	2. In the Cold, Cold Night Part Two

Disclaimer: see previous, and guess what? Alcohol. Uh-oh, kids.

I'll admit, chapter one: not too great. Hey, not every story has as great a beginning as "Call me Ishmael…." Here's to learning from mistakes. Such as: overly short length, horrendous use of words, and other…stuff.

Reminder: single quotation marks ' are character thoughts.  
  
I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself, By sven roc petrov I

Chapter Two: In the Cold, Cold Night, Part Two

Rei had never lost control before. She had always bent to the commander's will, yes, but she still controlled her own body's actions. Somehow, in that last memory she had, she had no control. Her body was moved, dragged along by some feeling she had no prior experience of. A paradox, really, that her Eva could be in sync with her more than it had ever been, and she had no control over what had happened. Perhaps by some deeply rooted protective instinct, Ikari had said she resembled a mother in some of her actions, she had simply let go of her usual analytical self and allowed her innermost feelings drive her. But that couldn't be it, the beast that had devoured the angel, hungrily taking its S2 organ couldn't be motherly, that would imply gentleness. It was more of an androgynous kill-or-be-killed instinct, that she simply allowed to surface. 

Welcome to the case of Ayanami Rei. The warrior, self-sacrificing, fierce, and subordinate, contrasting and interacting with her inner woman, independent, protective, and yet, something else remaining undiscovered fully. What was it that she felt in her experience in the confines of her mind with the angel? Was it a literal representation of what she was missing? Or was it just a reminder of her suppressed emotions, how she'd never allow herself to fall for…anyone?

Ritsuko looked down at at the girl, who had been lying on her side, noticing the sleeping pilot of Unit 01, and carefully laid a hand on her shoulder. "Rei?" Ayanami was jerked from her flashback of the carnage of the previous day. Her breathing was shallow and quick, but slowed as she relaxed and regained her normal composure after a minute.

Flatly, she asked the doctor, "Is there further need for me here?"

"I suppose you have no physical injuries that need attention," Ritusko said, as she looked at her clipboard. "I'll be back in a few minutes with the proper papers to release you."

"Very well." 

Turning, she added, "Ayanami? I'll also arrange a psychiatric evaluation. It should be pretty brief."

"Understood." She was sat upright and turned to look at the boy sleeping in the hospital bed next to hers. As the memories of the previous day, each as haunting as the previous, she turned to look away to try to ignore the thoughts. She heard a stirring behind her.

"Ayanami?"

It was Shinji. She slowly turned to look at him. "I see that you are awa--" Someone opened the door.

"Pilot Ayanami. You're cleared for release. Dr. Akagi filled out the necessary forms. By the way, you have a psych evaluation at 14 hundred." The nurse turned to leave.

"What is the time, currently?"

The nurse turned, "I'm sorry, it's currently ten. Hundred." She left.

"You have to go see one of the shrinks?" Shinji asked.

"I will be seeing one of the Psychologists, yes." Rei lifted her legs over the side of the bed and stood up. Still looking at Shinji, she said, "I will be leaving now."

"Uh, okay," Shinji managed before she left. He had always wondered what the enigmatic girl was thinking. He thought about her at length, trying to draw some connection to that and the vision he had while the angel was dissecting his memories. Was that the way that it fought? Just by weakening the mental defenses of it's adversaries? Probably. It probably showed him whatever would weaken him the very most. But _Rei?_ Why does her presence weaken him so much? Is it because he's intimidated of her poise, or maybe control? Maybe just her…beauty? He knew that he couldn't help but think of what was under her ever-present school uniform, especially since the day he was to deliver her new access card… "Hentai…" Shinji mumbled to himself. "Asuka would call me a baka hentai…" He let his mind continue along its previous path.

**

"So once you lost consciousness, you felt, alone?" 

"Yes."

"Is there anything else that you felt or experienced before you regained consciousness and the Eva went berserk?" He had difficulty reading her expressionless face, but he didn't get the job with NERV for nothing. She was holding back. The doctor was a bit apprehensive questioning the unblinking, monotonous pilot, even though he did find it interesting to have someone who radiated self control, unlike the usual schizo's and nervous wrecks that came out of project E. That's where the true cost of it was, the people. Someone told him that before.

"I, also had a dream, or something like one." Rei was getting more uncomfortable.

"Do you remember what it was about?"

Rei was having trouble maintaining her monotone. She did not want to be talking with this man, but she was ordered to. She had a responsibility to follow orders. "I saw myself and Ikari. We were, kissing. There was nothing else important."

"I see." The doctor didn't want to press his luck, he knew that's all he was going to get out of her this time on that subject. He thought over her words, _"There was nothing else important."_ Perhaps that was how she felt, that nothing other than that mattered to her. That could explain why she went, or rather her Eva went berserk…

"Is there anything else you need of me?"

"Yes, actually. Ayanami, what do you remember from the time after you regained consciousness?"

"I…suppose that I remember, thinking about how I needed to stay alive, as well as Shinji. It was probably no more than, a will to survive. That would be a logical inference, would it not?" Rei had actually begun to lose her usual deliberate smooth speech.

"That could be." 'Though I doubt it,' the psychologist thought to himself. 'She saw something in that dream that she didn't want to lose by dying. Pretty damn obvious what that was. I wish all my patients were this easily read.' "I think you're free to go, now Ayanami."

"Very well." Rei stood and left. 

"She called him "Shinji" instead of her usual "Ikari" didn't she? Heh. She slipped." He took a sip of his coffee.

**

Shinji had always been a little on edge in the car while Misato was driving. Had they not been closer to her apartment, he might have been open to talking to her at all.

"So Shinji, I heard that Rei had a very strange experience while she was unconscious." She turned to look at the boy.

"Misato, please look at the road while you're driving." 

She smiled mischievously, "Obviously you had some kind of similar experience, so what was it, exactly, that happened in _your_ mind, hm?"

He looked at her, and then the window, away from her. He remembered exactly what it was, but he really didn't want to say anything about it. He wasn't sure what to think of it himself, anyway. "What happened to Ayanami?" he asked. 

"Oh, she's fine Shinji. I was wondering what you might have been thinking about. Ritsuko told me what the psychologist got out of Ayanami, and since you two were both connected, she thinks that perhaps some crossover occurred. You know what I think, Shinji?"

"Yeah, I know what you think, Misato." 

Misato laughed. "Oh, so you know what Ayanami saw, then?"

Shinji looked away from the window, realizing what he had almost given away. "What did Ritsuko tell you?"

"You know that I can't tell you. It violates the privacy of the patient." Misato smiled.

"So why the hell do you know?!"

"I have to. She's one of my pilots. If she can't operate, I need to know why. Exactly why."

**

At dinner, the three of them, Asuka, Shinji and Misato, stayed more or less quiet. Misato had at least three of her Yebisu beers, ("The best way to end a day!" "I thought it was the best way to start a day, Misato." "That too!") and Asuka quickly ate and left the table, leaving Shinji to clean up. Misato continued to drink her Yebisus. 

"It's so weird how you two had your first kiss, and it wasn't even real…" Misato giggled. She was wasted. Surprise.

"What?"

"Shit. There I go again, just letting everything out. I'm so thrashed. Shinji-kun, hold me like Rei…" She knew she was making Shinji very embarrassed and angry simultaneously.

"Shut up. I'm going to bed." Shinji walked out of the kitchen.

**

She got off of Gendo. The bastard wasn't even looking at her. He just had his hands behind his head and was looking sideways. She knew that she was only a sexual substitute for Yui. She had always known. Last week he had been saying Yui's name during sex. Ritsuko couldn't take it anymore. This wasn't even meeting her shallowest of excuses for this kind of relationship. Even Misato and Kaji had some reason back in those days, they confirmed each their own existence, the act required flesh. For Ritsuko, she was only serving to get Gendo off every few days. She had gotten to the point where it no longer interested her at all.

"It's over Ikari. Now. Right now." She dressed herself.

"Very well. You weren't as good as you used to be anyway," he said, without feeling.

"Fuck you." Ritsuko walked out of his office. The door closed behind her.

"You'd know how." He didn't feel any remorse for his coldness. She was just another lonely scientist from the lab he banged every now and then. Just like her mom. It didn't matter.

And it's magically rated R. Great. I just lost some readers.

God damnit…


	3. Hypnotize

I actually had a halfway decent outline before I started writing this time. But once I started, it just got to the point where it was a mess of crossed out ideas and random lines that it became useless. So here's another free-written chapter.

I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself, By sven roc petrov I

Chapter Three: Hypnotize.

Shinji woke up to the comforting thought of his mental encounter with the lovely Ayanami Rei. He was drowsy, which was surely influential in his next decision: he walked to the kitchen, and began to dial Rei's number.

"Baka-Shinji, make me something for breakfast," Asuka demanded as she slowly took her seat at the table, wearily wiping her eyes. She looked up at him as he put the phone to his ear. "_Well?_"

"I'm going out today." He looked at her. "I don't feel like cooking. It should be Misato's turn for breakfast anyway."

Asuka hadn't expected him to stand up for himself, not now, anyway. She paused for a moment, almost expecting him to apologize or, or… apologizing was the only thing she had expected him to do, actually. "Where, then, will you be going?" She didn't really show her anger, but it was there. 

"Anywhere." Shinji looked like he wasn't just tired from recently waking, but rather tired of dealing with her, and he wasn't disguising it.

She wasn't only disappointed that he wasn't going to make breakfast, but she was more troubled about his mysterious plans to go out somewhere, with… "Who're you going with?"

Shinji put down the phone and walked out, out of the room, out of Misato's apartment, and off to Rei's.

**

She had known this for some time. The full extent of her own worthlessness hadn't quite reached her, not until that day. She heard the man say it aloud; she was a substitute for another woman. He was referring to Ritsuko's selection for interrogation. She was to be only a stand in for Rei. There was going to be a time for her vengeance…

And now it was time. There could be no one else. If she wasn't to have even his attention for a brief time when it should have been honest, and undivided, then there certainly wasn't going to be an infinite amount of replacement little dolls he could play with to get back the person he _was_ thinking about. Ritsuko gasped as she simultaneously found her card key fail to work and feel the unmistakable prodding of a gun to the back of her head.

"It won't work without my code," Misato warned her, as she cocked her gun.

"And what is it that you want to see, Major Katsuragi?" Ritsuko wasn't asking her directly, she was warning her; Misato wouldn't see something she wanted to really know about.

"Everything. Show me what's back there."

"Fine, but there are some things that you'll see, that…" she trailed off.

"Very well, now let's see it." Misato wasn't quite sure what 'it' was, but there was definitely some kind of answer to her questions about just what an Eva was in there. Misato followed the doctor through a series of hallways, arriving at a huge room, with the dangling skeletal remains of failed experiments.

"They're Evas. The first ones," Ritsuko said. You may not have known, but Shinji… He witnessed his mother disappear in this very place. He was with his father, and my…"

"Ritsuko, stop. I came for answers, not your half-assed monologues." Misato still held her gun pointed to the doctor's head as she followed her.

"This way." She led her into an elevator and pressed a button for a low, basement level. Once the elevator stopped, the two of them got out, and continued to follow Ritsuko down another dark hallway. She turned, and opened a door to a musty, dark little room, with bandages, medicine, and trash strewn about, with a single wavering light source, a window to nothing.

"What is this? It looks like whoever was living here is long gone…" Misato was unsure what she was looking at, and she couldn't figure out why Ritsuko was showing her this, this mess of medical supplies and waste.

"It is Ayanami's room. She was born here," Ritsuko said. "The light and water here, they define the depths of her mind."

"This isn't what I came here for, and you know that," Misato said. 

"I know." Her expression changed to be very serious and almost worried, though it was too dark to see it. They both walked out of the dreary, dark room. "It's the last door on the left, here." She opened the door, waited for Misato to enter behind her, and turned on the dim, orange light.

**

"Hello? Ayanami?" Shinji asked in her intercom. The door opened suddenly.

"Yes?" Rei was wearing her uniform still, even though there wasn't class that day. "Would you like to come in, Ikari?"

Surprised slightly by her invitation, he stuttered, "Y-yeah." He stepped forward in the doorway and Rei moved back out of his way. He stepped out of his shoes. "I thought we could talk…" He paused. Shinji wasn't sure how to say what it was he wanted to talk about. He could still feel her against him, her arms pulling him into the secure, peaceful feeling that was so evasive in his life-- and it was like being teased all day; he never really felt it, he remembered it, but never experienced…

"Is there a specific subject you wished to talk about?" Rei was able to guess what had brought him to her apartment, and she had been thinking about the same things. Did he really come to see her for that? It seemed strange, though it was something she had wanted to address, since the day that her Eva had gone berserk.

"Y- I guess there is, maybe." He was having trouble making eye contact. Now that he was fully awake, he wished he hadn't come here at all.

"Well, I have something that I'd like to discuss, then Ikari." 

He was used to Rei being more passive, not doing anything that wasn't asked of her, and there was a hint of excitement in his surprised, "Really?"

"I don't see why I would say that it if were otherwise." She noticed that he was almost constantly looking at the floor. "Are you uncomfortable around me, Shinji? I wouldn't want you to be, or I suppose, I don't think I feel that with you." 

Shinji looked up to meet her eyes, striking in appearance really; they were almost difficult to focus on, almost intimidating. "I…no, I don't want to feel uncomfortable around you--"

"But you do, then?"

"No, well, I," Shinji began. He knew that his stuttering was never going to help now; he needed to respond. "I don't think I would have come here if I thought I didn't want to be with you!" he said. "I feel like, I, I need you to exist. The rest of the world, the people, my father, they don't like me, and they…as long as they have their pilot for 01, they'll… but you! I found one place where I can forget about the death, the pain, and the blood that's been all around me and--" He stopped when saw that there were now two pairs of feet in his view of the floor, Rei had stepped very close to him. She was looking directly into his eyes, tears welling in hers.

**

"What… Ayanami, _Rei?_" Misato gasped as she saw the floating, smiling Rei's come into view. "What is this?!"

"Nothing I can't fix, Misato…" If she said anything between that and pressing a button on her palm device, no one heard it. Misato looked on in horror as the girls' bodies began to literally fall apart, their appendages dropping loosely away, crumbling into messy piles of flesh at the bottom of the tank of LCL.

"Do you know what you're doing?! For your sake, I hope you do, Ritsu--"

"They weren't human, just empty shells. They were merely empty, soulless voids, body with no real inner person." Misato put her gun back at her side as Ritsuko lowered to the floor. She was breaking down. "They were replacement parts, nothing more than that…"

"You can be so cold." Misato had somewhat understood that there could be a cloning project that produced soulless containers; she had been briefed on some of that for the rescue attempt for Shinji when he disappeared in his entry plug after his Eva had achieved a 400% sync ratio, but this was disgusting, the sounds of the snapping tendons and periodic thuds of body parts hitting the bottom, this couldn't be humane, not the least.

"Replacement parts, dolls. No one cares about the replacements, anyway, so it never matters when they die, because they were always expendable…" Dr. Akagi broke down and cried. Misato couldn't decide what she had more trouble looking at in the room, either the disintegrating Rei's or the equally broken Ritsuko.

**

There was a long period of awkward silence, or at least awkward to Shinji, where they simply stood directly in front of each other. He didn't know at all what had just transpired. 

Rei studied the slightly trembling boy in front of her just as she studied herself, though the latter was proving harder. He needed all of his courage to tell her that, and he still hadn't run away, even though he was still struggling. But what was it that she had became aware of in these past few days? He needed her. This was becoming apparent; not only as a fellow pilot, but also without her he had nothing, no one who could bring him real peace. These tears? She had them once before, when she awoke from her…incident. Perhaps she did have an overwhelming emotional attachment to him. She needed him. How had he been necessary for her to live? He didn't save her when she was in her molten Eva after she had shielded him from the fifth angel's particle beam, but he did give her something, show her something. He cared about her, not because she was instrumental in reaching his goals, but rather he wanted her to be happy, he wanted to see her smile. 

Shinji was shocked and relieved when he saw her near blank stare turn to a warm smile. "Rei, I don't know wha--"

Rei took the last remaining step forward and leaned into him, bringing her arms around him lightly. Shinji gently held her. "If you had run away, I would have not believed you, Shinji."

Shinji looked at her. "Why?"

"Because it would mean that there'd be a more peaceful place for you."

________________________________________________________________________

Crazy. You never would've guessed it'd be so stupid in the end.

I Fought Piranhas, next in the series.


End file.
